I have a hypothetical for the George Zimmerman apologists out there, and I daresay there are an alarming number of you: I want you to reimagine the tragic events of the Zimmerman/Martin confrontation and keep every detail the same – hoodie, gated community, 911 call, Zimmerman’s account of events, keep everything the same EXCEPT make Zimmerman black and Trayvon Martin white. Now here’s my question: given the hypothetical, are you still cool with acquittal? You’re cool with an armed black man marking, tailing, confronting and eventually killing an unarmed white teen? Yeah, I didn’t think so.
Another easily preventable shooting with racial overtones happened in Oakland, California not long ago. In the wake of a New Year celebration ushering in 2009, BART police captured and shot Oscar Grant (Michael B. Jordan). The cell phone capture of the events in question open the film, so it’s not like I’m spoiling anything. The facts are this: Hayward resident Oscar Grant and his baby mama went with friends to “Frisco” to see the New Year fireworks show at the Embarcadero. On the way back, Grant got into a fight on BART with another man; he and his friends were detained at the Fruitvale BART station in Oakland where Grant was arrested, cuffed, forced to the pavement face down and shot while still on the Fruitvale platform. Oscar Grant is black; the officer who shot him is white. The officer in question claimed he intended to use taser and used handgun instead; it’s impossible to know the truth of this claim and Fruitvale Station makes absolutely no attempt to do so. The film focuses entirely on the events of the day leading up to the arrest. It is almost embarrassingly light on the details of the tragedy itself as if to say the conclusion isn’t a fraction as important as the set-up.
Fruitvale Station is a fairly simple film; the day is a character study of Oscar so that we can evaluate the extent of the tragedy. We see Oscar fighting for a job, making promises to his girlfriend (Melonie Diaz), making nice with his mom (Octavia Spencer) and loving his little girl. We have flashbacks of Oscar’s troubled past and we get hints of a troubled-but-trying-for-better present. We also get a bit of cheating – I counted three separate scenes which were clearly in the film for positive character embellishment and nothing more. Yes, I’m sure Oscar was a nice guy, but having him insist upon connecting a 
random supermarket patron with his grandmother (via Oscar’s cell phone) for an emergency seafood cooking lesson and cradling a badly injured stray dog in its death throes is spreading it on a little thick. Nice scenes, yes, but decidedly fabricated. I did like Oscar getting to kiss his girl goodnight. Whomever Oscar Grant really was, I like to believe that is the truth — he loved his daughter and kissed her goodnight on December 31, 2008.
I was under the impression that writer/director Ryan Coogler is from the Bay Area. Imagine my surprise to hear “Frisco” and “The BART.” No native would say these things. They’re like hearing a guy from Portland say, “Or-a-gawn” or a Reno native claiming his home state of “Ne-vah-da.” I suppose every locality has similar issues. For me, they detracted from the authenticity of the portrayal.
For the most part, I come to this conclusion: Ok, movie, you did your job. You successfully represented Oscar Grant as a loving father/husband and all around good guy trying to put his life together with similarly characterizing BART police as something just shy of Nazis. Mission accomplished. What is the truth? We have tape, but shall never know the full extent;we do know the events of that particular New Year morning remain tragic. If social justice isn’t your thing, however, there’s almost no point in watching this film.
Oscar the victim
Racial tension prevails
No justice, no peace
Rated R, 90 Minutes
D: Ryan Coogler
W: Ryan Coogler
Genre: Rabble-rousing
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: The family of Oscar Grant
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: BART police
The timing on this release is impeccable, btw. Almost perfectly matching the decision in the Zimmerman/Martin case … how do you do that?
